#definitely murder and Kidnaping... other stuff too. previously I had written about this one guy denying he was bisexual and I have even

[a-student-out-of-time]

Connections Review Part 3

Storm Maverick- Category 5

And we return! This will be the final part of the Connections Arc. I had initial plans for this to be 2 parts but sadly Maverick got too big and therefore he required his own part. This is by far the most divisive part of the Arc as everyone seems to be content with the time travel and harems, but as soon as Maverick ‘Motherfucker Hellspawn’ Storm got relevant it all went downhill for some. So, what do I think?

So, this is part is less ‘What is Maverick doing’ and more of what I think of Maverick. As you guys know, I am aware that Maverick is a lot older than people seem to recognize as he has his origins in Askthedespairkids. And in the context of that blog, Maverick is actually a pretty good character. You have to remember that the blog was saturated with OCs and a lot of them suffered from severe sueness or edgy syndrome. I will not make names and I will not say who made the worst OCs because that’s the easiest way to start an internet war, but the two big reasons I got bored of Askthedespairkids and quit reading is due to how poorly written a lot of these OCs were and they hogged a lot of the spotlight, and the canon characters ended up being regulated to the side-lines, which didn’t tickle my fancy at all. True, Maverick was very over the top and what he ultimately ended up doing to his former classmates in Class 75 is incredibly graphic and probably worse than some of the executions and murders canonically, but I would rather blame the general OPness of that blog. Now this is on the Mod’s terms Maverick can hopefully be hit with the nerf hammer a bit more so he isn’t as ridiculous as he was in Askthedespairkids. Furthermore, you can’t call Maverick a Villain Sue and not apply that to Junko Enoshima, because yeah, she is a Villain Sue, that’s why I don’t like her.

But things are different now. Maverick is standing on his own, against only a couple of other OCs and canon characters. Furthermore, the Mod’s writing skills have improved since the Askthedespairkids days so there’s a bit more pressure on Maverick. I think there are two issues I find with Maverick. The first is that I didn’t like him making a move during this arc. The arc was fine just focusing on time travel and the various harems and relationships of the characters, adding Storm just bloated the arc and made it much longer then needed, I feel like Maverick could have been revealed next arc and the next next arc would be the next arc we are currently getting into. This gives me serious Oncoming Storm vibes where an Arc is ridiculously long and a build up to a (hopefully) big payload. Now let me make this straight, this Arc is a million times better then Oncoming Storm, I don’t think any future Arc would be as bad as Oncoming Storm, as that was long and boring whereas the previous stuff was interesting, its just that adding Storm made the Arc very bloated and artificially extended the length of the arc making it tedious. Perhaps a forewarning to the Mod when they decide to include someone like Mikado and Junko into the story. The second issue with Maverick is…he’s basically a poor man’s Junko. At the moment I’m really struggling to find any meaningful differences between Maverick and Junko. With Juu being around we already have our big bad villain for the second Session and if I’m right, Session 3’s main villain is going to be Mikado and Session 4’s villain is Junko. I know Maverick is important to the backstories of Umeko and Kyoji, especially Kyoji, but aside from tying up those loose ends, what is the point of Maverick? Does he exist to give the Quantum Crew a practise run against Junko? And yes, his threat level is higher as he’s kidnapping an obscene amount of people and is able to block us Anons, but Maverick shouldn’t know we exist. I really, REALLLLY hope there’s a logical explanation for that because if Maverick is somehow able to sense the Anons and see how much of a threat we are, then the accusations of Maverick being a Villain Sue do hold water.

Overall, I will be more critical of Maverick now then I was back then because he enjoyed being next to poorly written characters but that safety net no longer exists and there’s too many glaring similarities between him and Junko. Now for his actions yeahhh…. I did warn you guys that Maverick is that special kind of evil but I don’t think it was until Nikei revealed about all his foster families committing suicide that it really hammered home. It’s basically vindication of what I said before. The stakes are a lot higher now because previously yes there was all the girls being kidnapped but it was just Tokyo and one demographic, but here lots of people all across Japan are vanishing and being brainwashed by Storm, so the pressure is on for the Quantum Crew to stop him. And some familiar names as well as Damian, Aiko’s pen pal and Hiroyuki, Kiroko’s younger brother have gone missing alongside Kanon. Kanon vanishing means I think Leon is going to be important next arc because we did promise Leon that Hajime & friends would help her and he’ll be willing to throw his lot in to save his cousin. And the pressure is even more on because Yuki’s been taken as well, having traded Mikado for Storm. This is going be big, especially for Sora as she’s been struggling with how much she cares for Yuki and this will be a real test to see where her allegiances lie. Especially as its unknown what happens if either Yoruko or Sora dies, because if Hajime dies, time rewinds and he uses a life but what if Yoruko and Sora get offed? They don’t have lifelines so what happens if Hajime resets, does Yoruko revert to her old self or does Sora get erased from existence as she isn’t supposed to be ‘born’ yet?

Kyoji also got some development as we see him bonding with Monaca and the newly reformed Kanade, and it’s a very ironic twist that the two characters who are often nicknamed as ‘Satan’ in the fandom are now more or less siblings. As good as a caretaker he is for them though, his recklessness and self-loathing issues are still there as it prevents him from seeing Miaya despite a meeting between them being sorely needed and thinking she won’t want to see him again even if that may not be the case, and wanting to deal with Storm ASAP despite legit concerns that it could be a trap. Thankfully Chisa and Chiaki were able to talk some sense into him and rein in some of his more destructive behaviour. Given how manipulative Storm is and we have not one but two characters who are willing to go off the handle, possibly three if Nikei jumps the gun again, its going to be a very intense arc coming up as not only do the Quantum Crew have to fight against Storm and his backers, but also keep some of the more hot-headed members of the team from being reckless. The new members of the Quantum Crew are pulling their weight though as Kazuichi offered insight into the tech that Storm could use, Chisa obviously helping to keep sanity in check and Ibuki had one of her lucid ideas and managed to suggest how Storm delivered all the VPN password codes to his victims in a way that isn’t unnoticeable which is just mailing them a vacation brochure. I’ll admit, this was really clever by the Mod as that went over my head when it was delivered, but I should know about Chekhov’s Gun, which is don’t include something if its not going to be relevant later. Lesson learnt and I need to be more alert to detail now.

And that concludes the Connections Arc as the QR Code was scanned and they saw the welcome message from Maverick and Kyoji cursing Storm’s name. And my ranking shall be a C-. It would be a solid C but the inclusion of Maverick bloating the arc out and the fact that now he’s not being propped up by terrible OCs means the writing flaws of the character are starting to become more apparent and his similarities with Junko makes me question if he is a necessary character in the story or not. I will withhold too much judgement until the next Arc concludes but I did enjoy the Arc until the Storm part so its not enough to drop into D territory so C- it is. Either way, I’ll be watching the next arc with great interest and hopefully my new method of cutting down on needless wavering is making this easier to read. See you once the Storm calms down! -Review Anon

//Once again, thank you for the reviews. And admittedly, yes, I do wish I’d held off on introducing Storm’s plans until the ongoing plot threads were resolved and everyone came home. I can see all this being the beginning of the current arc and it probably would’ve worked better. That’s definitely the biggest flaw I can see with the last arc, though it’s important for setting stuff up and my desire is not for preparations to drag out, but for us to get to what’s important.

//After the Oncoming Storm, I’m wary of writing any more long preparation arcs, especially when I’m stuck in a long depressive episode ^^;

//I’ve never claimed to be a perfect writer or even a good one, but I’ve tried to improve on my writing since my early days. I had very little idea of what I was doing back then and it really does show. I only ask that you all go into the next arc with an open mind and not let past experiences of bad writing color your opinions, which I’m sure you won’t.

//I won’t spoil anything, but this upcoming arc has what’s probably my hardest decision as a writer to date and I’ve decided to committed to it, even if it hurts to think about. 

//I do hope you look forward to what comes next ^^

[sambart93]

2018.03.19 Dance with Devils The Musical: Fermata [Part One Review!]

I have two tickets to see this play (I gotta see both endings, duh!)  and I’m seeing it for the second time on Wednesday but seriously you guys...this is definitely making my top 5 stages/musicals for the year! I HAVE to get this review/report out ASAP! And once I’ve seen it a second time, I’ll make a Part Two post which will be more coherent and more detailed perhaps? Or just has extra notes.. we’ll see. 

MAIN POINT 

THIS WAS AMAZING AND I NEED TO GET THAT OUT ASAP! 

I’m watching Patarillo today (Tuesday) between the two DWD shows but in all honesty, now I don’t give a shit about Patarillo! I just wanna watch DWD again!! Hurry up Wednesday!!!

Official Website here Official Twitter here Press Coverage 1, 2, 3, 4

CAST and CHARACTERS

Kaminaga Kousuke as Remu Takano Akira as Lindo Yamazaki Shougo as Urie Yoshioka Yu as Mage Yasukawa Junpei as Shiki Tanaka Ryuusei as Jek Naitou Daiki as Loewen Washio Noboru as Viv Kimata Hiroyuki as Grand Fukui Daisuke as Ell Kobayashi Tatsuyuki as Shida Fukushima Kaita as Kazura Kitagawa Naoya as Marius Kimotsuki Rui as Ritsuka Dancer: Imai Ryo, Tsuji Daiki, Kimura Atsuki, Osaka Sora, Ozeki Kousuke

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I had a front FUCKING row for this tonight! I had THE center seat for this! IT WAS AmAZiNG! Pretty much the best 8800 yen I’ve every spent! Excluding that one front row seat in Ki ni Mesu Mama where Tomo held my hand.

*NON-SPOILER WILL BE POSTED AFTER SECOND VIEWING but guaranteed it’s atleast a 9/10 rating.

Jumping straight into spoilers!

STORY

So the story is still the bare basics, the devils coming to the human world to find Ritsuka and the Grimore and the vampires stealing Ritsuka BUT we have Marius who watches over and narrates this story (in fact he even says the 'who will you choose? Akuma or Exocist?' which is what used to just be written on the walls via projection mapping) and hints that history and this story will forever repeat itself and he has some connection with Loewen and Jek ad is able to visually manipulate Shiki which causes the story to change somewhat; Shiki ends up taking Jek's side which ends in Shiki and Mage fighting, Shiki is also manipulated into seeing his old angel friend who he brutally killed and murdered years ago and is the reason why he's so in love with breaking things. << As you can tell, we get a LOT more Shiki this time, so much Shiki story, scenes and development this time around. Also instead of Holland we have Urie's butlers so we get more of Urie's backstory and personality, which leads to Urie being more forward to Remu about liking Ritsuka and this causes a MASSIVE fight between them RIGHT at the end of the story -- it broke my heart! 

The ending I watched for my first show was the Remu ending.

That's pretty much all the major changes, so let's get down to the structure changes.

We actually spend a LONG time doing scenes before we get to the main opening theme song! We have Urie's butlers having daydream scenes of Urie and his relationship with Remu -- they do it via an over-the-top ridiculous comedy skit. And then we have Remu and Urie talking about Remu going to the human world by himself but Urie persuades Remu to let him go too; Mage and Shiki over hear and force their way into joining too. THEN we finally get to the opening theme song.

The story between Ritsuka starting school and Ritsuka being kidnapped is essentially the same 100%; we get their solo songs, we get them trying to talk to her in the school council, we get Remu saving her when her house is burnt down, we get Lindo returning from London and the students trying to figure out who he is etc. BUT we have extra scenes of Shiki and Ritsuka in this when she sees him painting and he goes to destroy it and she tries to stop him and they have a moment. Also Jek's song this time is a crowd pleaser that you're allowed to clap along to and squeal to. AND the freaking students have a song this time around that we can clap along to and is so much fun!

As previously mentioned we also get Shiki's backstory of when he was in heaven and he had a fellow angel friend called Ell but Shiki was drawn towards destroying stuff, so much so that eventually he turned on his friend and murders him and that's why he got kicked out of heaven.

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OKAY now to me randomly flailing about everything! It's going to be VERY all over the place but as long as you know the basic story, I think you'll understand what I'm talking about:

During the scene when the students are talking about Lindo 'the new transfer student', the students reminisce about when they gave presents to Remu and it turns into a comedy skit where: The students drew the worst picture of Remu but it was during a comedy skit so Remu was fake happy about it and we had Mage behind him like 'it looks exactly like you!' and Remu replied 'STFU!' xD The drawing of Remu!!! Then Shiki came in and took the drawing and ripped it oh so slowly.

When the boys first meet Ritsuka, this time Urie was REALLY feeling up Ritsuka!! He held her and then rubbed his hand up her thigh really strongly and slowly and I was like 'OH MY!' 

When it's just Ritsuka and Shiki, and Shiki holds her close and goes pretty vampy on her with his mouth SO SO close to her neck. I love how after this scene, she goes to her brother but still has Shiki's paint brush in her hand. OHHHHH AND HOW FUCKING MUCH SHE TRIES TO PROTECT SHIKI MULTIPLE TIMES FROM EVERYONE ELSE (cos they're trying to beat him up and hurt him) AT ONE POINT!!! OMG IT WAS TOO PRECIOUS!!!

Also the scene with Shiki and the students and the knife! The students didn't know what to do with him so they tried to hold it but got scared so tried to put it in their pants but got spooked again, their reactions were amazing! Serious kudos to the students this time around! They were absolutely FABULOUS!

In fact in general, ALL the reactions and little movements we get from the rest of the characters when they're in the background and/or aren't the main focus of the scene at that point were all amazing! We got such good moments; like the students (above) and we had things like Mage and Shiki holding hands at one point, and we had Shiki smiling so evilly when things weren't going well for Remu, 

AND!! Marius in general - he's never really the center stage, he's always in his little bubble up on the top left so he is constantly giving the best and most interesting reactions and Naoya does this thing of evilly licking his lips multiple times and I enjoyed it a BIT too much xD But, Naoya is ridiculously thin. You could see all the muscles in his legs and arms (like even the muscles between his wrist and elbow) and his elbows have like THREE points because he's just so thin. I swear he's currently medically anorexic which hurts my heart! I hope he puts weight on soon.

And just... ALL the little things were amazing.

I feel like this time around is SO MUCH DARKER. Especialy towards the end when we have Shiki and Jek pairing up, we also have Shiki almost killing Ritsuka at one point, we also have (I think it was in the anime though) Jek slitting Ritsuka's wrists, we have Shiki and Ell fighting, Shiki and Mage, Remu and Urie fighting. Especially the DAMN ending where it looks like Ritsuka and Remu are about to walk off and Urie is like 'fight me here RIGHT now. I'm not letting you have Ritsuka' and they beat the crap out of each other... goddammit. 

Which also leads to my next point; I CRIED LIKE A BITCH! Seeing Shiki and Mage and then the twist with Remu and Urie, I was in STREAMS of tears! I was an absolute wreck! I also burst out into tears when they did the slow version of the theme song ♡ It's so good!

Personally I feel that ALL the crap they added and change and stuff was just PERFECTION!

Ohh! We also had new songs from Lindo, Jek, the Students and I think one more. I liked all the new songs! And I really liked Lindo's new song and he dances with Ritsuka in it which is so cute! Also he sang this song during the live but it was with Loewen and seeing them do the dance together was ADORABLE! During Lindo and Loewen's duet and Loewen was all curled up and barking and it was adorable! AND during the students' song Lindo was so bullied by them because they didn't know it was him and he tried to join in with their dancing and stuff and they just pushed him out xD

OOHHH BUT I HAVE TO TELL YOU!!!!!! YOSHIOKA AND JP ACCIDENTALLY KISSED AT ONE POINT!!! AND YOSHIOKA COULDN'T GET BACK INTO CHARACTER COS HE WAS SHOCKED AND THE AUDIENCE WERE SQUEALING. JP managed to keep his cool and Yoshioka was taken completely off balance xD It happened just after Mage's solo and Shiki walks in after Ritsuka has run away from Mage.

The new Urie is so damn PRETTY!! He’s the best singer for Urie they’ve had I think. And he reminded me of Ino Hiroki a tad. While I am still Kamisato bias for Urie, this guy did a damn good job and I wouldn't mind him staying as Urie from now on. 

They kept Ritsuka as a male ballet dancer and he did a really good job! He was cute too (not Miura Hiroki cute but cute enough) He was a bit taller than what we've had before - so I kinda giggled when the rest of the boys got close to 'her' because I think she was taller than most of them xD And because he's over 20 (the dancer) this time, it explained why Urie, Shiki and such got a lot more touchy feely with Ritsuka this time around. I feel like they also they weren't as bothered this time about hiding Ritsuka's face because (I assume) they know the audience likes that it's a guy playing Ritsuka and we all want to know what he looks like and such. BUT it could just be because I was right at the front so the lighting and stuff didn't hide any of her face from me? We'll see.

It was either Remu and Urie or Mage and Shiki but either Urie/Shiki smiled and starred at the other for a long time and I was getting just such BL feels.... It was Shiki and Mage! I remembered now! Shiki was just starring down Mage and I was getting a little...hot.

I am so thankful that the production and director listened to us fans this time and gave us so much more Shiki ♡ it was the best!

Also it did not feel like 2 and a half hours which proves it was a damn good play! If something is so enjoyable that you don't feel it, you know they did good.

I feel like Kaminaga is SUCH an UNDERATED actor and I too always underrated him; like I LOVE whatever the hell I see him in but the rest of the time, I just forget about him! But he's such a good Remu!!!!!!!! He's so great!!!! He needs more love!!!

The girls behind me were like ‘woah this is our fifth time! But we haven’t been THIS close (second row) yet! Now I’m super nervous’ xD

ANNND! Can we discuss AKIRA’S THIGHS?!?!?! Can we just?! Because they are SO NICE! They fit his jeans so TIGHTLY! They looked great!!!

Seriously, the ending fucked me up when Urie started turning on Remu!!! Holy crap! And it sounded like the actor really smacked his leg on the floor so I think his hobbling was real for a good few minutes.

OMG and just before Jek's solo, Ryuusei came trampsing on stage like 'Today's magic word it Maji Manji!' and then he went on talking about something like being a high school girl xD I wouldn't put it past him.

I LOVE how Urie's butler Viv and his guard Grand dressed up in school uniforms and had these cute buns and hairstyles for their cover.

During the live Urie gave his rose to Mage and he was like 'what do I want this for?!' and then Shiki ran after him and was like 'give it to me!' but Mage refused and offered to a girl in the front row instead xD Seriously, JP and Yoshioka are such good friends and it just SHINES through whenever I watch DWD. 

There's a moment where Urie is constantly whipping and Mage is constantly punching Shiki.... Urie with a whip is not good o_O but really it is xD

I really really liked the new set! Center back we had this steampunk like bell and we had cogs around the rest of the stage and in the center we had an arrangement of steps around in a circle and the circle platform would spin around. I really liked it!

OHHH! Remu's Sauron eye of a father made several appearances. AND I spend the first few minutes of the stage laughing at Remu because I remembered just HOW MUCH I hate his shoes.

Also after the fight scene, I could hear Urie's actor ripping the velcro straps off his costume the MOMENT he stepped off stage xD It was pretty loud actually, especially because it was a non-music quiet scene on stage.

ALSO I swear to god one of the music tracks is very similar to LoTR music! I heard it and I was like 'where are my elves at?!' it sounds so familiar! 

In general, all the DWD music is great! I don't think I have a song or soundtrack number I don't like...

Final note: I will fight ANYONE who’s all for Ritsuka/Lindo instead of Ritsuka/Remu!!! << But watched me watch the other ending on Wednesday and I fall for Lindo/Ritsuka xD

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OH! After the show, there were kankeishas in front of me when I was walking out;

Guy: so this is a series? What number are we at? Girl: this was the second one

It took ALL my energy not to butt in and correct her. It is the THIRD one ACTUALLY!

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GOODS

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And I’m done! Now to go and see Patarillo now... but I just want tomorrow already!